I wasn't referring to "news". I was referring to marketing tactics. If my bike placed 1st and 2nd at Kona you better believe my webpage would be shouting that by Monday morning. As would Facebook and Twitter. I did see Specialized posting on FB about their 2nd place finisher in the men's race. But I have not seen anything from Felt yet.

I'm not suggesting news agencies send people to Kona to cover the event. I'm suggesting WTC make sure wire reports get out on the event and not have a national media black out if that's the standard they still go by. In 32 pages, there's not a single chance the "other" sports columns cant be filled with
Those wire reports don't need to tell the story (just the facts) especially when it can go as a "blurb" addition in one of the many sections of sports that have "other" categories, especially in the NY Times etc.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Oh, I wasn't accusing you of such. I agree with you. WTC should *at least* make sure it's in the "other" section of the Times. Esp on Sunday which has a pretty beefy sports section. The blackout, if one exists, is stooopid. They should be courting the wire services to put out beefy writeups so newspapers say, "I gotta have this in there, even if I don't have my reporter on site." A blurb of the facts is the minimum. Lots of stuff is covered by "pool" reporters even real news like wars. WTC's decision to not treat it like a real sport is a disservice to their best athletes and those athletes' ability to generate income (higher profile sport, more sponsorship dollars).

Almost everyone here is operating on the assumption that there's something inherently interesting about triathlons that the average Joe should like to know about it. The actual sporting performance doesn't offer much in the terms of excitement as it's based solely on strength and metering of effort, and not on tactics. Furthermore, the sport has no cultural root amongst the population to start with. As a cyclist, I used to gloss over any time trials until i started doing them as I found them to be boring, and triathlon is just a longer, more drawn out time trial that doesn't offer much in terms of entertainment value. Even for the road races, i don't tune in until the final mountain pass for climbing stages and the final 5k for sprints (if i care enough to follow it in the first placed). Classic races are much more interesting, but I usually watch only the last 30-40k as that's when the real poker game is played.

PS. Perhaps you ignoramous, country bumpkin, philistine, plebians need to subscribe to real newspapers as the Nation's de facto paper of record, New York Times, printed a short blurb about it (using what's on the wire services). http://www.nytimes.com/...for-german.html?_r=0

they didn't have a blurb about it for the infinitely more interesting UCI Worlds Road Race

Just to add, holy smokes, Rinny made up a 13 minute or whatever deficit by running a 2:50:xx marathon. Kienle crushed the bike despite tough wind conditions and held off a charging American Ben Hoffman and former gold medalist. Even though triathlon is a fringe sport, Saturday was pretty epic. I know a lot of sports fans, even people who can barely swim a lap in the pool, would love to read about that stuff over a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning.

I've contacted IM to actually see what their updated policy is. ETA: So I'll actually see what the real policy is before further discussion occurs.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

I'll say also, look at the piss poor coverage that IMNY got. The pre-race sewage dump in the Hudson and the unfortunate death of an athlete. The fact it was the US Pro Championships (perhaps a joke, but whatever) and won by a local-born athlete, Jordan Rapp, but still got no ink tells us about awful media efforts. I mean why wasn't Jordan ringing the bell of the NYSE? Or on the Today Show? It's not like journalists needed to travel for that event. And since the race was in August, really the only "competition" was MLB.

Ah yes, and I think the bigger issue isn't WTC; it's the sport of triathlon. We are beside table tennis and lawn darts in terms of importance. We are a yawner sport, plain and simple. Not that that's bad, just that's bad when you want coverage. So as I said, if we are pushing info out to news agencies and they are simply not adding it to their content, fine, I'm cool with that. But if you aren't even trying, that's shame on us.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Yup, I remember when Cycling was in the same boat. No telecasts of any kind, next to no coverage in the paper. Just coverage of a bunch of fat guys playing kids games.

I enjoy watching cycling but I have to admit, watching a 260Km stage is not the most exciting thing even if there are lots of exciting things happening during that 260Km. Same as in a Long Distance Tri, watching the swim isn't all that exciting. Watching the bike has some moments but it doesn't even have the tactics of road racing. If we could see power, HR etc., that "may" help. And watching a marathon has never been the top of hardly anyone's list.

I like the human interest stories and seeing things like Rinny's run yesterday. I also enjoy the ITU stuff, Sprint & Olympic and can watch them but they are done within an hour to an hour and a half. All condensed down. But then I can't watch the Stuper Bowl as it takes for-friggin-ever. And IMHO is very boring. I'll watch a rerun of some cycling event instead.

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BC Don
Pain is temporary, not giving it your all lasts all Winter.

Maybe you're overestimating how big it is because of involvement?

I know maybe 2 people that even knew Kona was last weekend. I watched some live coverage but can't really dedicate hours to livestream. It's a really boring spectator sport. I find soccer boring because a team will probably score one or two times in hours. You can watch triathlon for hours and the top 3 positions stay exactly the same.

I agree. What you need is a first to Hawi, first back to Waikaloa, first out of T2. First to the the Alii Drive turnaround on the run and first to top of Palani and first to the energy lab. Make these primes all equivalent to getting say 3rd place, but then dial back the prize money for 4th place and beyond (certainly 5th and beyond because no one cares). Like the tour de France, we need many races within the race, which should be rewarded more significantly than minor placements. And I don't care if an athlete DNF's after that. Just make them race their pants off to those checkpoints and drive up the pace of the entire race. This way we will also see records come down. Name these primes after sponsors and have them foot the bill for the prime.

Some pros may say that they will make less money this way, but if you don't have to finish, then you can just gun for these intermediate prizes and then bail out. Some might debate with me that you have to finish, then OK fine...I can live with that if guys cruise/jog it in.

You don't think anyone should care for 4th or 5th- 10th at the World Championship event of IM? So essentially go the way of the Olympics and podium or bust? So the podium gets all the money and the rest goes towards primes?

I certainly would hate to see them take the money away from 4th-10th (or however deep they pay) so that the primes can be improved.

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@brooksdoughtie
USAT-L2,Y&J; USAC-L2
http://www.aomultisport.com

Even this championship made the news.

http://www.cbc.ca/...on-returns-1.2796300